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From: dave@onfcanim.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.org.usenix
Subject: Re: gripe about Washington Usenix conference
Message-ID: <15246@onfcanim.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 10-Mar-87 00:06:41 EST
Article-I.D.: onfcanim.15246
Posted: Tue Mar 10 00:06:41 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 10-Mar-87 19:30:25 EST
References: <7720@utzoo.UUCP> <1227@msudoc.UUCP> <2992@ihlpg.ATT.COM>
Reply-To: dave@onfcanim.UUCP (Dave Martindale)
Organization: National Film Board / Office national du film, Montreal
Lines: 15

>I also prefer the speaker be a the foil projector so s/he can point to
>something on the foil with a pencil.  The flashlight arrow that a speaker
>at the lecturn has to use is harder to see, and distracting because it
>jiggles around on the screen because it is hard to hold the flashlight
>steady.

At the Toronto USENIX, the lecturn was equipped with a pointer that
used a helium-neon laser instead of a projected white-light arrow.  Its
visibility was far better than the conventional pointer; the intense
red spot would be hard to miss.  I assume they rented the pointer from
somewhere; it was clearly designed for just such a use and was not a
lab laser.

That was a few years ago now, and I'm surprised I've never seen a laser
pointer at a conference since then, given how well it worked.